Blaze of Glory
by Alex E. Andras
Summary: Motels never gave the safety that the Impala did, Dean always found that the monsters could slip into the rooms they stayed in whilst their father was out. And tonight he can't find the shotgun... Oneshot. Wee!Chesters.


A/N: Whilst it being, conventionally, far too early for any kind of Christmas story, I have been... coerced into posting this now by angel_death_dealer. It's also, almost entirely her fault this one even exists. Anyone who has frequented the NaNo forums at any time will probably be at least vaguely familiar with the 'travelling shovel of death' dare, this story is, by all means, the ill conceived brain child of explaining the dare to angel_death_dealer, and what was probably too much pear cider xD.

* * *

Blaze of Glory

(The Travelling Shovel of Death Saves Christmas)

The motel was, outwardly, a ramshackle job. The building looking on its last legs; doors and window frames of peeling faded paint, crumbling brick walls, one room's window was boarded over, the lights in the motel sign flickered dismally, staying off longer than they were on, the 'VACANCY' promise tripping in and out as much as a ghost.

The inside, or at least the inside of the room John had secured them, was a different affair to the outside. The floors clean, the beds freshly made the day they'd moved in. A clean bathroom and kitchen area, and working colour television with a tape player, walls that looked (and smelt) freshly painted. It was a vast difference, a decent look up, to a number of the rooms they had stopped at recently, a huge contrast given inside as that created outside, and, most importantly for the Winchester, it was quiet. Three other cars the night John had pulled in. One other car the day he had given his usual orders to his eldest, hung the 'DO NOT DISTURB' sign on the door knob, settled into his car and driven out to a hunt.

It was night three since that had happened. A brief phone call had occurred in the early afternoon, a promise that John was on his way home and would see his sons shortly. In Dean's opinion it couldn't have been better timed, the last of the spaghetti-Os had been eaten at lunch, the box of macaroni cheese finished that evening, the last dredges of Lucky Charms would result in two half bowls for the boys in the morning, provided that Sam didn't give Dean his puppy eyes and have the lot.

Dean hoped his father would be in a good mood in the morning. He had given no information about the hunt over the phone, and Dean was relying on it having gone well to urge his father into buying some turkey steaks, some sweets, a couple of toys, anything that could work for Christmas in two days time. He had already procured the tree, a limp, broken plastic icon he'd pulled from the dumpster the other day that was obviously not perfect enough to be displayed within any other establishment. For Dean it worked. He had spent the day with Sam, sat on the floor in front of the television, Christmas cartoons playing constantly, Sam singing and humming to Christmas songs Pastor Jim had taught him before John had moved them on from Blue Earth for this hunt, and the pair had made up from old newspapers a run of paper chains, Dean had procured from the bin a small run of fairy lights that worked after he had twisted one of the bulbs in right, and the tree was looking better. Not perfect, but better, a matched for their not perfect family, with dad away, mum dead and Sam and Dean, ten and six, holed up in a motel room two days before Christmas eating the last of the macaroni cheese.

He had let Sam stay up late. It was almost Christmas; the kid was a bouncing pile of excitement, and Dean had figured, had learnt from previous years that if he let Sam stay up later the days leading up to Christmas he tended to drop off right away Christmas Eve. And so they had stayed up, watching corny Christmas films until Sam, eyelids growing heavier and heavier, had slipped his head from his brothers shoulder to his leg, blinking heavily at the Santa on the screen, and Dean had jostled him up and to bed, Sam mumbling quietly about Santa and their dad, and the pair had curled up in one bed, and fallen asleep.

He wondered what had woken him, lying in the dark and still room, Sam's warm breath against his neck and chubby fingers curled into his pyjama top, his ears strained for a moment, as he pulled into full awareness, but he heard neither the roar of the Impala's motor nor the familiar slam of the car door or the less familiar click of the motel room door. Just the still and the silence, though the wind was picking up outside, a possible promise of snow in its howl, and Dean shivered, pulled closer to Sam, wondered if it was the cold that had woken him, and he let his eyes close slowly, the lure of sleep pulling at him.

A slight sound, almost missed as he moved back into sleep, and Dean was fully awake again, muscles tensing, eyes darting in the dark, trying to find the unfamiliar that had made that soft whispery sound across the room, close to the bedroom door.

Slowly, trying his hardest to keep his breathing deep and even, he pulled one arm away from Sammy and groped beneath the pillow, eyes widening impossibly as he search, fear and anger with himself crashing down as he remembered the gun John had left them was propped up against the other side of the bedroom door, where he kept it during the day, where he had meant to grab it from when he had turned in for the night.

Thinking quickly, eyes still searching, gaze cutting through the darkness to try and discern in the dark what was in the room with him and Sam, he untangled himself from his little brother, pulled his t-shirt from the grasping fingers and rolled over, stilling as Sammy whimpered at the sudden loss of his brother form his side. Across the room, beside the door, the whisper of movement came again, and a soft sigh, a breeze of air from slightly parted lips.

He mumbled quietly, his own voice barely audible to his own ears, but he knew it would sound like he was locked in a dream, and after a moment of silence he heard the soft whisper of movement, saw the shape, the shadow shuffle forwards, come slightly from the door towards the bed.

His breath quickened slightly, involuntarily, and he forced himself to breath slower, forced his muscles to relax slightly and, regretting it fully, tore his gaze from the shadow to look across the room. His father's bed was barely four feet from him, and he knew what he could find under the bed.

Arms moved forwards, fingers grasping and pulling until the tightly tucked sheets were edged from beneath the mattress, and his body shifted again, his movements forced casualness, until he had one leg, one arm, one side of his body hanging out of the bed, toes grazing against the floor, body shivering as the cold attacked this exposed side.

His eyes flickered, leaving the shadowy shape of his father's bed to instead land on the shadow that was threateningly drawing forwards, his concentration of freeing himself from the bed had pulled his attention from the whisper-y noises as the shadow moved closer. Again tearing his eyes from the form he rolled, both feet on the floor, and his body was twisting, sliding fully out from under the cover, diving forwards stealthily, arms out in front of his, fingers questing.

"Dean?" the voice was sleep-thick, foggy, but as soon as his brother had left the bed Sam had snapped awake, snapped awake and jolted up, body tense, eyes wide and searching in the dark "Dean?"

The whisper of movement again, and then a mutter, from neither him or his brother, and Dean's fingers found solid cold wood, retracted for a fraction of a second before curling tightly, forcefully, around the handle of the shovel he knew his father had left behind, had left under the bed because he hadn't needed it on the hunt he was on, because it wouldn't really fit in the trunk and a shovel in the back of the car was too hard to explain when you're also carrying a shotgun and are covered in grime and blood. Spinning quickly, his heart leapt as eyes focused on the shadow, beside the bed, close to Sam, _horribly_ close to Sam, memories of the Shtriga only seven months before, leaning over the bed, over Sam, although this shadow, this monster was larger, bulkier, than the Shtriga had been, and without thinking, without considering, the shovel was pulled fully from beneath the bed, heaved up and around his shoulder like he pulled the bat when playing baseball against Caleb and Joshua at Pastor Jim's house, and with a shout Dean was jumping forwards, leaping onto the bed and across it and swinging and the shadow that loomed over Sam.

No thought. No consideration for his own safety, no real plan other than to hit the thing hard and fast and frequently, nothing but the fact that Sam was screaming, loud and long and terrified, and that was all Dean needed to make him throw caution to the wind.

The first hit threw the shadow back with a eruption of air, and Dean was bounding off the bed, landing on the shadows chest, feet sleeping on what felt like hair, like sleek fur, reminding him of Pastor's Jim's dogs, of Bobby Singer's dogs, and then he shifted, allowed his body to drop from the things chest, feet holding firm on the ground either side of the things chest, and the shovel was brought up and over his head, Sam's scream was still in his ears, the kids throat was going to be sore for days, Dean was sure of that, and then the shovel was coming down, striking dully on the shadows head, rising up to drop down, the action repeated again and again and again...

He was not really aware of the motel door slamming open, the bedroom door bursting inwards to bounce against the wall and fly closed again, just went on raising the shovel and striking it down onto the head of the creature, and when a voice echoed out behind him, rising louder and louder until it was just barely audible above Sammy's scream, he started, spun so fast that one foot caught on the shadow's chest, made him stumble, his body pitch to one side as a shout burst from his throat, and he still valiantly, blindly, swung his arms out, hoping to get at least one shot on this new thing, this new danger.

The shovel was halted jarring his arms, the sound of metal meeting flesh not reaching his ears, and then a hand was grasping his wrist, fingers prying at his own, and his shouted, one hand letting go of the shovel to fight weakly against this attacker, and another shout pulled from his throat as his other hand was pulled from the shovel, the weapon falling to the floor, and then arms were around him, pulling him into a solid chest, warm and familiar, and the smell of sweat, smoke and gun oil washed over him, calmed him as much as the rumble in the chest he was against did.

The hands released him, making him whimper bitterly, and then he was grabbed up into one arm, pulled again against the strong chest, and he wrapped his arms around his father's neck, buried his face into the man's shoulder as weightlessness took over as John lifted his eldest easily in one arm, moved over to the bed where he youngest still sat, his screams dying as his throat no longer allowed the abuse, and gather the smaller child into his free arm, pulling the youngest of the family into his other side, holding both his sons tightly.

Eventually Dean's shudders, his silent sobs stuttered and stilled, and John moved slowly, unwinding his arm from his son to reach out blindly, fingers questing until they finally hit upon the small bedside lamp, searching until he could hit the switch on and his arm again wrapped around his eldest as he himself blinked in the sudden light.

The creature, a twisted mutation of bear and human, was sprawled across the floor of the room, its head resembling little more than pulverised meat, fur and bone matted into the mess of blood and flesh, the shovel listed against the things side, blood coated, and he could feel cool wetness on Dean as he hugged the boy, blood from the thing on his son as well as the floor and walls. Three days later, sat in Jim's library and nursing a beer, listening out to his son's who would be plagued by nightmares for another six weeks, he would find the name of this creature, this monster his eldest had killed, this bugbear.

Now however, he stood, swayed slightly as he adjusted to the weight of a son in each arm, and crossed over to the bedroom door, nudged it open with one foot, did the same with the door to the motel room, that one broken when his panic at hearing Sam's screams as he'd pulled up had made him barrel in without unlocking the door.

Dean stirred as he settled the boy onto the backseat, edged closer to his younger brother as John set the younger boy beside him, and fingers grasped at the younger boys pyjama top as too wide eyes stared at his father.

"You'll be safe here," John promised quietly, tugging a blanket off the floor of the car and pulling it around his son's "I'll take care of it and then we'll go to Pastor Jim's. You did good son." The waited for the nod, for the wide eyes to fall to the sleeping six year old at his side, and then John was shutting the car door, one hand reaching for the keys to lock it, give his boy's some semblance of safety, but paused as Sam stirred, buried tighter against Sam, and eyelids fluttered tiredly, the eyes beneath echoing the fear within Dean's and the voice that called out to him before he closed and locked the car door was hoarse, barely there, testament of the abuse Sammy's screaming had put it through.

"Don' forget our Christmas tree daddy,"


End file.
